Netokracija Features the Success of the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber Community

The really simple things such as can I come to Croatia? The lack of transparent information is breathtaking for an industry which is 20% of Croatia’s GDP. We have had a lot of questions from North Americans wanting to find out how to visit Croatia, Brits on air bridges, the driving experience with borders throughout Europe, testing, quarantine, help with the entercroatia.mup.hr form, unmarried partners of Croatian citizens, border questions. A broad mix. It has been a very interesting exercise, with many community members posting their real-life travel experiences, so that we actually have the most up-to-date situation online regarding travel to Croatia right now. Join us! 

 

 

Because our tourism chiefs are not making any information available. I believe this is deliberate, and our old friend, Croatian politics, is at the heart of things. We have an election in a few days, as you know. The domestic audience is being served all these stories about how tourists are coming, Croatia is one of the only countries which has tourism, Minister Cappelli says we are ‘breathing tourism’, one of the finest corona-era metaphors I have heard. This is being served up to the voters. But as soon as you look at the information situation outside Croatia, it seems that they really do not want tourists. And I think this is partially true – due to corona, Croatia cannot handle the same number of tourists as last year. There are of course ways to control the number of people entering Croatia through technology, but the ministry seems to be conduction a campaign on non-information instead. I gave the minister a technology solution to manage all this, which he said he would look at but I have heard nothing since.  

 

These days, about 20-30 minutes a day. Kreso Macan spends a little more, and we have one of his excellent Manjgura interns working about an hour a day during the week, and some occasional help from my TCN colleagues. For the first week or so, it was more than that as we set things up, but Macan is a genius at this sort of thing and so I listened and followed his instructions. We have the community and the daily travel update Macan helped us make this into the master document which is pinned to the top of the community. It is now in 24 languages, so very helpful for all our tourists, and updated in real time. Viber told us that we had 100,000 visits in the first month – big thanks to the team who helped me with this. It has been a great learning experience.

 

 

On May 17, Macan and I went to Bregana to see what was happening on the border as there was no information, and our readers were asking questions. Full respect to MUP, they were doing an incredible job (and continue to do so), but tourists were being turned away as they did not have paid accommodation. I asked Macan why we did not have a Viber account such as the excellent koronavirus.hr updates. He suggested we create one ourselves. I laughed, explaining I was such a technology champion that I did not know how to download Viber onto my desktop. He told me to come to his office in two days. 

 

There I sat with him and two interns. Within 20 minutes, the community was live, within an hour we had our Infographic, and within 2 hours we had 500 community members. And there were asking questions. Mostly in Hungarian. Macan showed me the Viber auto-translate feature, and there I was, two hours after watching one of the interns downloading Viber to my laptop, answering travel questions in Hungarian. My kids thought it was the funniest thing ever. And then a Hungarian community member asked if we could have the infographic in Hungarian. I asked the community for a volunteer translator. By the end of the day, the infographic was in 12 languages. The next day, the daily update was available in 24 languages. And the questions were getting answered in all languages. The questions showed us where the confusion was, so I produced articles of explanation on each issue, then added those links to the daily update. And so now the questions are less, and other community members are also helping with the answers. 

 

 

Haha, not at all. I used to think that the Croatian National Tourist Board existed to promote tourism in Croatia. This crisis and season has shown just how irrelevant they are. Did you know that with a national tourist board, 20 regional tourist boards, 319 local tourist board, a ministry of tourism, and a dedicated section in the Chamber of Economy that all the tourist email questions being sent are being answered by the Croatian police? There is little promotion, no vision, a completely dysfunctional system, and even the tourist questions are being answered by someone else. 

 

When Minister Cappelli called me, I asked that he put a member of his team to help answer the questions. As an official from the ministry, the answers would have more authority. He said that he would. When we met in his office a few days, later, he told me that this would not be possible, as we were a private initiative. So I suggested he start his own little community, with one person from the police, the ministry and the national tourist board. If Macan, I and a couple of interns could do it part-time as volunteers, imagine what could be achieved with an entire ministry and all those tourist boards. He seemed open to the idea. But yes, nothing happened. Because they are not interested in giving out the information.

 

I invited the national tourist board to join the community. They replied that they answered emails they received. When asked for a yes or no to joining the community, they did not reply. 

 

So no, it doesn’t demotivate me at all. Perhaps it makes me more determined to show the world how irrelevant and pointless they are. We are soon to launch our Croatia 2.0 CROMADS concept, part of which will take Croatian tourism in the direction it needs to go. Not one based on Croatia Full of Whatever Fits the Slogan, but on the concepts of safety, lifestyle, authentic experiences, local food and wine, and digital nomads. Croatia, Your Safe, Authentic Lifestyle Destination. If any of your readers want to get involved, please contact me. 

 

 

As I said to Minister Cappelli in our meeting, the tourism structure in Croatia is totally dysfunctional. You have the national tourist board who does not report to the ministry or vice versa. Then you have all these local tourist boards, who report to the town they are in, rather than the national tourist board. Many are appointed as political rewards rather than for ability, and they have less justification to exist in the digital era. There is no accountability or cohesion. And then you have the tourism sector of the Chamber of Economy. I am still trying to understand what it is that they do all day. As I said to Minister Cappelli, the only solution is an Act of Parliament to abolish the ministry, tourist board and Chamber of Economy and replace it with something meaningful and digital. He didn’t agree, of course, so we will do precisely that with the CROMADS project. 

 

 

For as long as it is necessary. Now that Macan has got the system into shape, it really is no problem to maintain it, and it is lovely to see messages of thanks from community members who arrive safely in Croatia thanks to the advice and experiences of the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community. It has taught me a lot about community, and I will be taking lessons from the experience and using them elsewhere in our businesses.  

 

Aleksandra Djermanovic, who runs Viber Croatia, had this to say: 

 

“We all know that tourists are quite capable on sourcing information before travelling to a specific country. And sure, the information on how to travel to Croatia in the time of COVID-19 is available on various websites. But what Kreso, Paul and the TCN/Manjgura team bring to the table with their Viber community is a simple (but often forgotten) human touch. Community members know that someone from the team will get them answers; they know they won’t be left behind. And in this day and age, this is truly what matters the most.”

 

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

Read the Croatian Travel Update in your language – now available in 24 languages

Join the Total Croatia Travel INFO Viber community.